Challenge #00924-B193: Witnessed
http://thentheresthisspazz.tumblr.com/post/123284811011/mythological-creature-aus
Doot doot.
If you’ve already done all 7 by now, your challenge is to cross over two of the prompts into one.
[AN: OK for future reference and my current incompetence, I’m using a checklist.
[ ] (In/Suc)cubus
[X] Siren
[X] Werewolf
[X] Cursed animal
[X] Dragon
[X] Frog
[X] Vampire
thank you for your patience with me. Oh, and haimaee? Here’s more]
“No. Just no, okay? Francis Drake did not write Shakespeare’s plays. Elizabeth the First didn’t write his plays either. You know who really wrote them? William fucking Shakespeare! The whole ‘mystery’ about the authorship was started by a bunch of little gits in Eton who wanted to believe that only blue blood is capable of creating real art. They didn’t want to admit that William Shakespeare was an unwashed commoner who came from parents who could barely read!” Ed came to a panting halt. His normally pallid face held the vaguest hint of a blush. And since he never blushed, Courtney could guess that this was a source of agitation. “And he didn’t write the fucking Bible either. He was a fucking atheist.”
“Wow,” said Courtney. “You don’t even take history. Why so bent out of shape about stuff that doesn’t even matter?”
“Because it keeps happening. You don’t want to believe that black people built the pyramids, so you say aliens did it. You don’t want to believe that the same people who sacrificed humans on pyramids in South America were the ones who made the Nazca lines. Aliens again! You don’t want to believe that the son of a couple from Snitterfield not only wrote those magnificent plays, or coined half of the language you use to deride him… so you say someone else did it for him.“ Another pause so that Ed could recover his breath. “It’s everywhere. And I am sick of it. I want to stop people shitting on his art for as long as I can live.”
“Why do you even care?”
“Because he was my boyfriend! He was bi, an atheist, and the most gifted person with words that I have ever met. I only wish I could have convinced him to…” sigh. “Fuck.” Ed slumped back into his chair. “Please don’t call anyone about that, okay? I don’t want to spend another century in an asylum.”
Courtney boggled. “Another?”
“Every time I let it slip that I’m a vampire, they lock me up and I spend fifty to a hundred years trying to convince them that I’m telling the truth.” Ed sighed. “They’d probably dope me up and tie me down for years before they tried talking to me.”
“You don’t… kill anybody. Do you?”
A very sharp-toothed grin. “I used to keep pigs before I discovered coconut water. Thanks. That’s always the first question.”
“I’ve seen you in the sunlight…”
“Only underfed vampires get hurt by the sun. Coconut water. I literally live on the stuff. And before you ask, no, I do not get hurt by silver. It’s gold that hurts a vampire. Can’t be corrupted, so my kind has no defense.”
“I can’t use you as a source for my paper, can I?”
“No, for some reason, history professors really hate the people who lived in it.”
“Probably because you keep telling them they’re wrong.”
“That’d do it.”
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